Loss of a Poet

Poet and editor C.E. Chaffin was a fixture in my weekly poetry life for a number of years, thanks to the Melic Review's Roundtable and also his appearances at the Alsop Review's Gazebo. These two poetry workshop sites helped me shape my writing in the 1990s, when I began to shift from focusing on prose to poetry. C.E. passed away unexpectedly in the last week. I remember reading with him at a reading John Amen organized in at a bookstore in San Francisco's Mission District for The Pedestal contributors. C.E. brought his guitar and both he and John sang. It was also a great evening because I got to meet Jaimes Alsop, now also gone. May they both rest in poetry heaven. They have richly earned it!

Other literary news that delights me is hearing that "the Canadian Chekhov," short story writer Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. What, a woman? Who writes about the kind of people I might actually meet and know, with little violence involved in the stories, and almost no political angle? Have they lost their minds? Can't wait to hear her speech. Sanity prevailed. And gender blindness.